“If Mr. Avenatti wishes to be admitted pro hac vice before this Court, he should be required to explain to this Court how he came to possess and release this information.”

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, is a fixture on CNN and also appears to be weaponized by someone to fight battles against Trump on a broader scale with the Stormy Daniels dispute the excuse, not the reason, Avenatti is involved.

Most notably, Avenatti recently published what appear, at least in part, to be bank records relating to Michael Cohen. There were problems, including the misidentification of payments to the wrong Michael Cohens (in addition to the right Michael Cohen).

The release of bank records raises serious questions as to who is feeding Avenatti information. The bank records are private and the release potentially is a breach of the privacy laws.

The Treasury Department has opened an investigation into whether bank records belonging to President Trump’s private lawyer were illegally leaked to a lawyer for porn actress Stormy Daniels.

Those records show that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen took payments from corporations — including telecom giant AT&T and drug-maker Novartis — seeking to curry favor with President Trump.

Rich Delmar, the general counsel for the Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General, said Wednesday that investigators want to know if the disclosures violated the Bank Secrecy Act.

That law allows the Treasury Department to collect information on suspicious bank transfers, subject to strict privacy provisions….

Avenatti won’t say where he received the information on Cohen’s bank history. But on Twitter, Avenatti challenged reporters to seek out the suspicious activity reports collected by the Treasury Department.

“Why is no media outlet doing a story on the refusal of the Treasury Department to release to the public the 3 Suspicious Activity Reports that were filed concerning Essential Consultants, LLC’s bank account?” Avenatti wrote. “This deserves immediate attention. The SARs should be released now.”

As part of his crusade against Trump via Cohen, Avenatti is seeking to enter an appearance “pro hac vice” as counsel for Stormy Daniels in the court case in the SDNY involving the search warrants executed on Cohen’s law office and home. Pro Hac Vice means that a lawyer who is not a member of the Bar of a court seeks special permission to appear in an action in the court. Such applications are routine, and not usually the subject of objection assuming the attorney is in good standing in another jurisdiction.

The application for Avenatti to appear as counsel is in connection with Daniels’ request to intervene in the case involving the seizure of Cohen’s records by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

On May 9, 2018, Cohen filed an objection (pdf.)(full embed at botton of post) to Avenatti appearing in the case unless and until he reveals his source for the bank records (emphasis added):

… The Court has not issued an order with a briefing schedule for the motion to intervene or Mr. Avenatti’s pro hac vice application, but we now submit this opposition to Mr. Avenatti’s pro hac vice application for the following reasons: (1) yesterday Mr. Avenatti published numerous incorrect statements regarding Mr. Cohen while his pro hac vice motion is pending before the Court; (2) Mr. Avenatti is apparently in possession of and has published information from some
of Mr. Cohen’s actual bank records, and Mr. Cohen is concerned that Mr. Avenatti has no lawful basis to possess those materials; and (3) Mr. Avenatti has made numerous incorrect statements to the public in an apparent attempt to prejudice and discredit Mr. Cohen on this matter for which he seeks admission….

While Mr. Avenatti has published numerous incorrect statements regarding Mr. Cohen, he appears to be in possession of some information from Mr. Cohen’s actual bank records. Mr. Avenatti has published information from these records, such as the identities of and payments made by Mr. Cohen’s business clients, such as AT&T and Novartis. Ex. A at 3-4. These business clients have not been previously identified in public. We understand that the Government now possesses these records as a result of the seizures executed on April 9, 2018, and prior seizures, but we are not aware of any lawful attempts by Mr. Avenatti to obtain these records. We note that prior to this submission, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Treasury initiated an investigation into whether these bank records were “improperly disseminated.”….

We have no reason to believe that Mr. Avenatti is in lawful possession of these bank records. If Mr. Avenatti wishes to be admitted pro hac vice before this Court, he should be required to explain to this Court how he came to possess and release this information. The details of when Mr. Cohen was paid by these business clients – whose names had not previously been made public – have no relation to the litigation in which he represents Ms. Clifford or any purported reasons he may have to appear before this Court.

Given that appearing pro hac vice is not a right, and the public release of confidential bank records by Avenatti raises questions, I would expect the court to seriously consider the request to require Avenatti to disclose where he obtained the record. After all, Avenatti wants to appear in a case involving disputes as to the confidentiality of law office and other records, but has shown a willingness to disseminate arguably confidential bank records.

UPDATE 5-11-2018

The Court has ordered that if Avenetti wants to be heard at an upcoming May 24 conference, he will have to file a formal motion for admission pro hac vice by May 17. That would bring the objections Cohen has raised before the court pretty quickly.

No, this is more than likely from the SC. It would not be difficult to obtain these records under the Title I FISA warrant which was still in effect as late as August of 2017. And, both AT&T and Novartis have stated that they were contacted by Mueller’s team about the payments to Cohen.

Help a non-lawyer out. If I hire a hooker, does her lawyer then have a right to involve himself in a matter unrelated to his client? Also, If I paid her a buck thirty for discretion and some strange some years ago (but mostly for discretion), why am I not making her life a legal hell for disclosing that which must not be disclosed? Shouldn’t I legally have the right to a refund, a penalty, and any proceeds she has or ever will accumulate for eternity as a result of her violation of the NDA?

Cohen filed a suit against Daniels for $20 million dollars in March of 2018, for violating the NDA that she signed. Why do you think Cohen was raided in April and is the victim of financial leaks in May? This is not only an attempt to discredit Trump, but to get Stormy off the hook for &20 million. Cohen has nothing to tell Mueller, which is why the Cohen case was dumped on the SDNY USA.

2) he’s telling the truth, in which case there is only one place those could have come from, and by leaking them someone on the inside has now compromised the entire case, not to mention jeopardizing their own careers once the source is identified. And if this is true, it will be identified – too few people had access.

Attorney client privilege belongs solely to the client. Her former attorney holds no privilege, and is ethically mandated to turn over her ENTIRE file at her request (there is mixed authority over the use of an “attorney lien”, but no implication of that here), sometimes to include even the attorney’s notes for his own use alone.

ANY communicative, or records thereof, involving her prior attorney belongs to her.

And strikes me as an incredible stupid unforced error on Avenatti’s part. Unless of course, the hope is for the forenseic accountants of the world to unearth a smoking payolla gun to point at Cohen and implicate Trump while Avenatti takes one for the team.

Given none of this has anything tobdobwith Stormy Daniel’s it seems more likely that CNN, which had Cohen’s banking details from an informant sent the information to the latest so he could “report” on it that would then enable CNN to report on the leak.

Turns out Avennati is a crook.https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/05/why_isnt_michael_avenatti_in_jail.html
In a complaint submitted to the California State Bar Association — and cc’d to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle — Bellevue attorney David Nold asserts Avenatti carried out an illegal “pump and dump” scheme through his Washington state-registered Tully’s ownership firm, Global Baristas US, LLC.
Nold’s complaint contends that while Avenatti ran the company, he fleeced nearly $6 million in federal and state tax withholdings — money meant to be held in trust for payment of quarterly taxes — from the paychecks of Tully’s employees.

The complaint also claims Avenatti fraudulently transferred $100,000 from the Tully’s operation last year to retain lawyers for his California law firm’s unrelated bankruptcy.”

I don’t like this at all, it sounds like Trump is expanding ethanol subsidies. We seem to be subsidizing Canada, Brazil, India, and China importing ethanol. Good lord we have to get rid of ethanol subsidies, this is so corrupt.

I don’t love the liar Duh Donald, who’s been caught in multiple lies over this sordid affair. He could have ended this LOOOOOONG ago. I don’t know anything…and I haven’t said anything…about Avenatti other than he has a reputation for being an effective trial attorney.

Your religious zealotry drives you to make lying statements constantly, and forbids you looking at the whole picture.

I’ve never “praised” anyone here. I’ve stated bald facts. You can’t deal with them. You ALSO can’t deal with the truth that Mr. Establishment does stuff, lies about it, and employs a “fixer” to contain what he knows will be damaging information about his conduct…all for crass political purposes.

Daniels DOES have a successful career in porn. In just about every facet of porn. Avenatti DOES have a reputation as an effective, successful trial attorney. So did John O’Quinn, who I despised. But the man had talent, and that cannot be denied.

Calling her names and him names is just crap borne out of your religious zeal. T-rump messed with her, pursued her for about a year, and was finally rebuffed. But he’s above criticism with you, as is Cohen.

As I noted LONG ago, T-rump could have ended all this by simply NOT lying.

Hey bully boy: you seem indignant in false moral outrage that Trump has lied and lied. Tell ya what, amigo, get back to me when Trump is caught lying under oath. Apparently, you hold the President to a higher standard than previous presidents Clinton and Obama, or the wretched Hillary. I don’t know about the rest of the folks here, but in November I was in NC voting for a flawed, imperfect candidate. I wasn’t in Vatican City electing some Pope.

Rags: “You call me a bully. How fun! All I have is persuasion and the objective facts”

What objective facts did you employ when you danced all over my Father’s grave? I wasn’t even talking to you, just sharing an amusing anecdote with everyone re how starstruck he was first time he argued before SCOTUS. Then you turned it into something tasteless.

Stop pretending you are some virtuous character. I’ll be here forever to shut you down.

No the banking information would not be discoverable, as it would have no bearing on the lawsuit, only the record of the payment would be discoverable, the amount of the retainer or attorney fees would be covered by attorney client confidentiality and only disclosed if the prevailing side with attorney fees being awarded. Please review FRCP26, discovery is not an open-ended fishing expedition–ie please disclose all transactions, documents, electronic records involving or pertaining to Stormy Daniels not disclose every record document you have in your procession. The witless mr. Avenatti is facing serous rule 11 sanctions if not criminal charges.

Can confirm. I have a lawyer friend who says “File for every deduction you can find, everything. The worst the IRS can do is say ‘no, you can’t file for that deduction’. It’s unreported income that gets people thrown in jail.”

Well, no. Fraud in any form…on either end of the income/out-go equation can get you in trouble. But usually THAT has to be positively false, known statements of fact. Filing for things you might think you’re entitled to but are not is not fraud.

People don’t get prosecuted for simple things, like failing to even file. There have been some few notable exceptions, like Irwin Shiff (spelling dubious) who was a notorious tax rebel. Generally, the IRS has LOTS of power to go after you outside of anything criminal.

Some IRS debt IS dischargable in bankruptcy.

But there is no question that dicking with withholding taxes will get you prosecuted. And not just by the Feds. States, too.

After all, Avenatti wants to appear in a case involving disputes as to the confidentiality of law office and other records, but has shown a willingness to disseminate arguably confidential bank records.

Likewise, Avenatti has made multiple errant statements about releasing SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports) filed at Treasury by financial institutions, which are also confidential and protected by the Bank Secrecy Act.

The big story, which is not being widely circulated, is that the a federal judge has just ordered Mueller to surrender all of his evidence against the 13 indicted Russians. So, now, does he do it? Or does he drop the cases and request the indictments be quashed by the court?

Being that Avenatti published records showing banking records of the wrong Michael Cohen, it would seem to indicate that he obtained his information from someplace other than a Mueller investigation leak. Why would Michael Cohen have in his possession any banking records from other people that share his name that Mueller could have gotten in the infamous raid? The leak, if it originated from the Mueller investigation, would indicate that Mueller got his banking information from another source and never checked to ensure it was the correct Cohen for whom they had records. Would Mueller be this amateurish? Not likely. More likely, Avenatti got the banking records from someone else who did a quick search of some database and then published the results without checking into their validity due the the rushed nature of this effort.

The Cohen financial information from the Treasury was not obtained through a raid on Cohen. Mueller’s team interviewed AT&T and Novaris, late last year [2017], before that occurred. Also, Mueller’s team had to present the SDNYUSA with some evidence which would justify the action against Cohen. When the information seized in the Cohen raid was stonewalled by the court, some other avenue had to be found to get the info to Avenatti. If it came from the SC investigation, then it is very likely that inaccurate information would also be included to make it look as though this came from another source which had not already parsed it. The Mueller team is already under intense scrutiny about other leaks, which most likely originated from that investigation.